Old Adages and New Ones
By · CommentsYou probably know that “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” but did you know that “A pound of fat equals 3,500 calories”? As a chiropractor who believes that a healthy lifestyle includes a healthy weight, I believe that the latter equation is just as important as the former when it comes to your health. So does First Lady, Michelle Obama. In announcing a national plan to counter childhood obesity, she indicated that weight loss doesn’t have include an unnatural “minus” intake of food, but slight lifestyle changes, such as replacing soda pop with water or walking to school, are “small changes that add up.” The formula seems simple enough: reducing calorie intake by just 100 calories a day, or burning up that amount, would equal losing a pound every 35 days, or as much as 10 pounds or more a year. And, though individual losses might vary and educating children (and their parents) about nutrition is still very necessary, in my opinion making “small changes” is a healthy place to start for many kids.
Unfortunately, there are those who find such equations “misleading,” like the health blog at NYTimes.com . In it Tara Parker-Pope states that “numerous scientific studies show that small caloric changes have almost no long-term effect on weight. When we skip a cookie or exercise a little more, the body’s biological and behavioral adaptations kick in, significantly reducing the caloric benefits of our effort.”
The question the article poses is “Can small changes in diet and exercise at least keep children from gaining weight?” And it goes on to say that “While some obesity experts think so, mathematical models suggest otherwise.”
To read the blog in its entirety, click the link above. Then you can reach your own conclusions.
Pick Your Poison, Choose Your Beer
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Let’s face it, if you like beer, you’re going to look for a good reason to drink it, whether it’s a tailgate party, as a pizza accompaniment, or to help build strong and healthy bones. Say what? Up until I heard the recent news reports and read an article that appeared recently on the healthDay News blog, I wouldn’t have listed that last reason on the “pro” side of any health list I was making. But according to a new study published in Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture beer (or at least “some” beer high in barley and hops that contain dietary silicon) contributes to bone mineral density. I’m a chiropractor, so naturally anything that helps to build bone density is good in my book. And, though there are foods, such as bananas, that also contain dietary silicon, if you like beer, this study is good news!
Beer for the Bones?
(HealthDay News) — Beer may help keep bones strong because it’s a rich source of dietary silicon, which contributes to bone mineral density, a new study reports.
But the amount of silicon apparently varies by the type of beer.
“The factors in brewing that influence silicon levels in beer have not been extensively studied,” study author Charles Bamforth, a professor in the food science and technology department at the University of California, Davis, said in a news release from the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. The study is published in the journal’s February issue.
“We have examined a wide range of beer styles for their silicon content and have also studied the impact of raw materials and the brewing process on the quantities of silicon that enter wort and beer,” Bamforth said. Wort is liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer.
The researchers tested 100 commercial beers and found that their silicon content ranged from 6.4 to 56.5 milligrams per liter.
“Beers containing high levels of malted barley and hops are richest in silicon,” Bamforth said. “Wheat contains less silicon than barley because it is the husk of the barley that is rich in this element. While most of the silicon remains in the husk during brewing, significant quantities of silicon nonetheless are extracted into wort, and much of this survives into beer.”
More information
The U.S. National Institute of arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases has more about bone health.
SOURCE: Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, news release, Feb. 7, 2010
Proper Pre-Season Training Should Be a No-Brainer
By · CommentsAs a chiropractor, I treat plenty of teenagers (as well as adults) who’ve sustained sports injuries. When it comes to the “weekend warrior” syndrome, it seems that teenagers don’t realize, anymore than their parents and other adults who indulge in sport activities do, just how important getting in shape prior to getting fully involved can be. So I was happy to read the following article and recommendations for high school pitchers and I want to pass it along to you.
High School Pitchers Need To Train Properly Before Season To Avoid Serious Injuries
High school pitchers who go full-speed the first day or week of spring training may be headed down the road to serious injury. “A large number of high school athletes take the winter off and just go out and start throwing as hard as they can,” said Matt Holland, a physical therapist with The Methodist Center for Sports Medicine in Houston. “The problem is that their arms are not in baseball shape and they open themselves up to serious shoulder and elbow injuries.” The rotator cuff is a group of muscles that act to stabilize the shoulder especially during the throwing motion. An inflamed rotator cuff (tendonitis) can cause pain when lifting your arm and will most likely dramatically affect a player’s performance on the field. Problems with the rotator cuff can not only damage the rest of the shoulder, but may also lead to elbow and other arm problems that shorten the careers of many pitchers. To read more, go to medicalnewstoday.There are a number of chiropractic treatment plans the Dr. Donald Bolt, your Oxnard Chiropractor, offers that are highly effectual when treating the musculoskeletal system, from dealing with a particular concern to working with your overall health goals. Following a detailed examination and a discussion of your concerns, he will advise you as to which treatment plan would be most beneficial for you. As your Chiropractor in Oxnard, Dr. Bolt will offer you a number of treatment programs from which you can make a decision based on your present health problems as well as your long-term health and fitness pursuits.
It may be advantageous for you to have some understanding, in advance, regarding the various chiropractic treatment plans your Oxnard Chiropractor may provide for you.
Relief Care is a specific chiropractic approach proposed to those who are struggling with any kind of pain, ache or discomfort, regardless of the cause of the challenge. The purpose of this kind of therapy is to offer prompt pain relief. The length of the treatment phase is likely to fluctuate as the treatment depends entirely on the extent of the injury or dysfunction suffered by the individual and how fast it can be remedied.
Corrective Care is a “more advanced” form of chiropractic treatment. This is for those that have suffered with spinal issues over an extended period of time, which is to say, for those who have a persistent challenge that has developed into a more complicated condition resulting from their having delayed specific intervention. Restorative treatment invariably stretches over a longer time frame. How long treatment is needed is determined by the severity of the progressive injury and how fast the person responds to the treatment.
Maintenance Care, as the name implies, is intended to maintain or preserve any type of procedure already administered to a patient. Often, chiropractic care is extended solely after the initial treatments have been shown to be effective. The purpose of this type of chiropractic care is to avert the potential of the initial dysfunction returning and to discourage degenerative changes in the future.
wellness Care is presented to those that aren’t going through acute pain, but want to strengthen their overall health. Routine chiropractic treatment increases the movement of blood and oxygen in the body, boosts muscle flexibility, helps prevent work and play injury, and increases a person’s overall perception of well-being.
Regardless if you are currently in pain or you wish to increase your overall health, chiropractic care can help. Call Dr. Bolt, your Oxnard Chiropractor, today!
Dr. Donald Bolt, your Oxnard Chiropractor, wants you to know that it’s not always mandatory for you to look for a conventional healing technique if you have painful arthritis. As a matter of fact, more often than not some natural techniques may be able to aid you in overcoming the pain, even when medical science is incapable of doing so. One of the reasons for this is because most natural methods tend to look for a cure for the real cause of the problem but medical practitioners treat just the symptoms. If you’ve been searching for natural treatments that have proved to help arthritis pain and many other afflictions, you need look no further than chiropractic treatment and acupuncture. Here are the reasons why.
The Healing Benefits of Acupuncture
Acupuncture has been implemented for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine. Today, quite a few sufferers all over the world are experiencing relief from their arthritic pain and other health challenges by coming in to see an acupuncturist on a routine basis. In keeping with traditional Chinese acupuncture therapy, small needles are inserted into the body at specific points that are known to affect multifarious areas of the body. In traditional therapy, only the needles are used, but on occasion and particularly in recent years, minute electrical currents are sent through the needles into the body, has been found to be an especially effective technique for arthritic pain. Despite the fact that it may seem though it would hurt, it hardly ever does and, in fact, almost all people experience relaxation and pleasurable sensations during acupuncture treatments.
Chiropractic Treatment Eases Pain and Slows Joint Degeneration
For over a hundred years, chiropractors have been helping people suffering from back pain due to arthritis and other arthritic problems. A chiropractor treats people who are suffering from musculoskeletal and nervous system problems. Arthritis is generally inflammation and degeneration of particular joints within the skeletal system. Chiropractic medicine treats the aberrations of the vertebral column that restrict the activity of the nervous system. These misaligned vertebra, in addition to producing arthritic changes in the spine, can lower resistance and immunity, hence causing new health conditions. A proficient chiropractor has superb observational and diagnostic skills that assist in ascertaining physical aberrations and joint problems. Many chiropractors perform neurological tests and orthopedic examinations. Some will evaluate the posture of a person in order to identify postural deviations and may also study gait to determine faulty movement patterns that may produce new arthritic changes as well as add to current arthritic pain. Chiropractic care non-invasive, drug-free treatment and in addition will offer advice and provide education about the benefits of individual lifestyle changes, such as in exercise and nutrition, that will help to slow down joint degeneration in the body.
So, if you are experiencing arthritis, back pain, headaches, neck pain, hip pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, or balance challenges, and you’d like to do more for your body than simply taking medication, chiropractic and acupuncture may be able to help. One way to find out for sure is to go in to see a good chiropractor, like Dr. Bolt, your Chiropractor in Oxnard, or an acupuncturist in the area, and to permit an alternative healthcare professional to clarify for you definitively what these healing methods are going to be able to do for you. It’s very possible that you will experience some relief from your pain even after only one visit. With subsequent visits, you will maintain your improvements, and you might just discover that these natural treatments work best to relieve your painful arthritis.
Dr. Donald Bolt, your Oxnard Chiropractor, knows that trauma sustained from a fall, an auto accident, sports injury, or some other acute event can happen to both young and old, alike. However, commonly the knee challenges that most of us experience as we get older are diagnosed as “non-trauma knee problems.” In other words, our knee problems are the result of chronic dysfunction that, over time, has developed into substantial or even extreme knee pain. Chiropractors, like Dr. Bolt, treat nearly as many people with knee complaints as they do people with back pain. However, if more patients came in to see their chiropractor sooner for back care, it is less likely that they would incur knee problems in the first place. Why?
The answer is the compensatory, “chain-reaction” way in which the musculoskeletal system performs. The entire musculoskeletal system shifts and tilts in order to counterbalance an area of dysfunction. For example, pain in the patella (kneecap), also known as Patella Femoral Syndrome (Knee Cap Pain), is frequently the result of imbalances in the quadriceps muscles of the thigh that connect to and move the patella. These imbalances commonly begin in the lower back, especially in the sacroiliac joint. You may remember the old song, “…the knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone…” and so on. Chronic challenges are never isolated because we are whole, organic beings from our head to our toes, or to put it another way, we are one skeletal system from our skull to phalanges. That’s why restricted foot movements due to foot pain, will usually produce painful knee problems, and poor knee tracking will develop as the result of incorrect gait patterns such as pronation (walking like a duck with toes pointed out rather than straight ahead). And, finally, being overweight and the wearing of high heels on a regular basis will eventually create knee pain.
Chiropractic treatment can re-establish proper muscle balance, restore desired motion to the patella and other knee joints, and realign subluxations of the sacroiliac joints and bones of the foot. The tissues of the knee joint, expressly the cartilage, will continue to wear if knee problems are left untreated. If the bones start to rub on one another, bones spurs and other changes can take place.
Musculoskeletal problems, such as knee pain and degenerative joint disease (osteoarthritis), generally increase with age. You may have heard the saying: “Today you are younger than you will ever be.” So, don’t waste time, see Dr. Bolt, your Chiropractor in Oxnard, as soon as possible. In fact, call him today…for tomorrow’s sake!
Dr. Donald Bolt, your Oxnard Chiropractor, has helped many people overcome vertigo. What is vertigo? Vertigo is a term for the dizzy disturbance that a person feels within a fixed environment. The perception is that the surroundings are tilting or spinning. Vertigo can be sudden and short-lived or chronic. In both cases, the exact cause of vertigo should be uncovered and the necessary treatment undertaken.
There are many causes for the symptoms of Vertigo. An inner ear condition, known as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, can occasionally occur as the aftermath of a head injury or severe cold. In addition this kind of vertigo can be the result of the aging process. The cause, however, frequently is unknown. Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo may seem like an exceptionally long term, but it describes perfectly this non-progressive condition that is produced by, as its name implies, a quick change in head position. The symptoms are normally unexpected and unpredictable.
To get an idea of what brings about the frequently disabling symptoms of this type of vertigo, it is beneficial to note the function of the inner ear. The brain senses movement and maintains balance through the medium of the fluid contained in the inner ear. The inner ear also contains small calcium carbonate crystals, known as otoconia. These crystals will float in the inner ear fluid if dislodged. As the crystals strike against the sensitive nerve endings in the inner ear, they cause the symptoms of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo or BPPV.
The good news is that chiropractors, like Dr. Bolt, using a technique known as the Epley Maneuver, can get rid of the symptoms of BPPV, quickly and effectively. Using this technique, he slowly turns the head of a BPPV sufferer into several different positions, allowing gravity to move the calcium carbonate crystals away from the nerve endings and into an area of the inner ear where they won’t generate further dizziness.
Call Dr. Bolt, your Chiropractor in Oxnard, if you believe that you may be suffering from Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. Often, with just one treatment the majority of patients no longer suffer from dizziness. Call today and get the help you need!
Your Oxnard Chiropractor, Dr. Donald Bolt, treats many patients who are suffering from weight-related musculoskeletal problems. It is no secret that carrying around excess body weight, especially as we age, can cause a number of health problems from cardiovascular diseases and diabetes to back and joint pain. Extra body weight puts undue stress on organs, like the heart, and on joints in the low back, hips, and knees. Over half (62%) of American adults are overweight or obese, according to recent studies. That is a very significant number and a big problem (no joke).
Excessive weight, in the form of body fat, is hard on the structure of the human body. It was not designed for the added. Only an additional 20 or 30 pounds can put the musculoskeletal system literally on overload. Weight in the belly, for instance, requires that the body compensate (counterbalance the weight) by tilting the pelvis forward. This creates compression in the joints of the low back. Joint compression constricts nerve activity and produces painful inflammation. Weight-bearing stresses can cause a pinched sciatic nerve or create misalignments of the spinal column that impinge nerves. This is the reason that most overweight individuals suffer from low back pain. Misaligned vertebra can not only create new arthritic changes in the spine, but can continue to irritate the degenerative changes that have already taken place over time.
How can chiropractic help? Though a healthy body weight is absolutely indispensible for the ideal performance of the musculoskeletal system, chiropractic treatment relieves nerve restrictions in the spine and helps to restore motion back into the joints of the musculoskeletal system, like in the low back, hips, and knees. And, exercise and physical activity is a lot easier when the spine is in alignment and the joints have healthy motion. Exercise will not only help in weight reduction, but it can actually delay degenerative changes as we age.
It is always best to discuss diet and exercise with a healthcare professional, like Dr. Bolt, your Chiropractor in Oxnard. Chiropractors not only help individuals get pain relief from back challenges and joint inflammation due to arthritis but, in addition, they offer expert advice on the type of lifestyle changes that can aid an individual in staying healthier and more active through the years. Arthritis and immobility as we get older do not have to be inevitable. The human body was designed for a lifetime of pain-free movement.
So, if you’ve been throwing your weight around and all you’ve been getting in return is back and joint pain, Dr. Bolt can help relieve your suffering. Make an appointment today!
Did you know that chiropractic treatment has been increasing in popularity for years and that it’s continuing to increase yearly as the favored healthcare alternative for many men and women? As a Chiropractor in Oxnard, Dr. Donald Bolt can confidently tell you why. Individuals are opting for chiropractic care because of the many added advantages that such treatment can provide. No other medical practice is less invasive to the body and, at the same time, can stimulate the body’s normal capability to heal instead of masking symptoms with prescription drugs.
Let’s face it, wherever there is a musculoskeletal structure, for example in the human body, there’s the likelihood of musculoskeletal dysfunction such as back pain and neck pain, pain in the shoulder, elbow, hip and knee joints, and ankle and foot pain. No one is immune from misalignment of the spine and joint inflammation, though numerous challenges are often the end result of sports injuries, accidents, and the aging process. Irrespective of the cause, whatever form of movement on a traumatized part of the body can not merely result in pain or suffering, but inactivity. And, of course, particular musculoskeletal problems, if left untreated, can lead to permanent disability.
It has been reported of chiropractic care that its “health benefits exceed” remedying a specific challenge. In fact, someone who comes in to see a chiropractor for low back pain, for example, not only profits from pain relief, but also increased circulation, a lowering or elimination of lactic acid, easier travel of oxygen and nutrients within the body, increased flexibility, reduced general pain and soreness, better recovery time, a more stress-free feeling, and the avoidance of future injuries! Is it any wonder why chiropractic care has become the treatment of preference for more and more people?
In addition to supplying qualified musculoskeletal treatment, chiropractors will also are able to provide education and counsel when it comes to enhancing your complete health and wellness. Chiropractors fully understand that in order for an individual to get healthy and stay that way, it’s important to select a natural health-oriented approach to life such as drinking lots of water to keep the body hydrated, following a nutritional diet program, and creating a consistent stretching and exercise routine.
Chiropractic treatment isn’t going to quite work “miracles, ” but it can come pretty close in numerous areas that may possibly surprise you. For instance, chiropractic care helps pregnant women give birth more easily. It can sharpen developmental potentials of babies, like improved motor skills, and frequently impede scoliosis. Chiropractic adjustments for kids has helped lessen bronchial asthma discomforts, ear infections, and bed-wetting. In combination with the rewards stated earlier, consistent chiropractic management can help adults to feel more vital and vigorous, which consequently boosts productivity. And, then finally, for aging baby boomers and the senior population, not only can chiropractic treatment assist in lowering age-related troubles and keep someone more active in later years, it can minimize the balance problems that all too often lead to serious injury from falls.
If you are currently visiting a chiropractor, that’s great! You have no doubt already felt most advantages stated earlier. If so, why not inform your friends about chiropractic? Don’t let someone you care about fall victim to the kind of misinformation relating to chiropractic care that will keep them from experiencing their day more fully. Tell a friend or family member to call Dr. Bolt, your Oxnard Chiropractor, today to get the help they need!
